Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author.While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server.

A) Individuals with severe aphasia may not be able to produce propositional, verbal-symbolic communication (speech or nonspeech modalities) until basic referential skills emerge (either naturally or with facilitation)

Perceptual rankings and ratings of overall communication competence were derived after jury members (4 student clinicians, 1 supervisor) interacted with participants in aphasia group therapy for an entire semester.

Quantitative data on frequency of referential acts was derived from one randomly selected aphasia group therapy session that was judged to be representative of typical skills

Example: Teach family members to place remnant of an outing or activity in view or in communicator’s pocket. Use verbal or physical cues to trigger presentation of remnant in response to peer question “What’s new?” Fade cues as appropriate

Develop a formal tool to catalogue the referential, intentional, symbolic, pragmatic, and linguistic communication skills of people with severe aphasia during interactive communication activities

Compare data to determine if referential ability correlates with other communication skills; also measure whether perceptions of referential ability correlate with perceptions of communication competence

Perhaps some of the information on referential communication, intentionality, and symbolic communication from the child language and severe disability literature can contribute to our therapy approaches for people with severe aphasia